An afternoon, and a smoothing plane

An ongoing project for me has been to rehab one of my grandfather’s planes that he passed down to me. The plane is about the size of a #4 Stanley, and is of the “Tecomaster” brand, which I understand was produced for the Eaton’s line of department stores. With the little bit of knowledge I have of planes, I didn’t expect much from it, any more than I would a “Walmart” brand plane, however, the fact that it had been my grandfather’s inspired me to at least get it into working condition. That, and it happens to be the first bench plane that I’ve owned. I have a #4 Stanley and a Miller Falls series 90 on their way, courtesy of Ebay; upon their arrival all my motivation to work on the mighty Tecomaster will fade…Flattening the sole was a beast…many, many sheets of 60 grit sandpaper gave their lives to the cause…
Frog is in good shape, I didn’t bother doing much more than making sure the iron seated firmly against it.Sharpened the iron to a 25o bevel…Cap iron fit closely to the plane ironSuccess!! (worked well for pine, although you could plane pine with a screwdriver…stepped up to fir…still curly smooth shavings…stepped up to walnut…had to close the mouth down to a sliver, but still got some nice shavings off)

I’ll have to wait for my other planes to arrive and compare…Thanks for reading!

Rob- Always cool to see way-off-brand tools go to good use. Can’t tell – are the knob and tote plastic or painted wood? And you may want to read up on sandind the face of the frog, the part that faces the iron. Good contact there improves the stability of the tool in tougher woods… Nice work!

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --

With shavings like that, there’s not much to argue about:) Looking at the plane, my first thought would be that the lateral adjuster might not work as well as desired. Am I right? I think lateral adjusters are over-rated to begin with (I also like to break them, which supports my position;).

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

My dad’s maroon-colored #4 Stanley smoother has that same bent metal lateral. I don’t use it often, but it’s one of those set it and forget it things that don’t seem to aggravate much if at all… Wonder if Stanley made this one, too, in the 60s?

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --